Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Peanut butter Oatmeal cookies are so quintessentially American because of the two ingredients which are available in all american households I think.
I learnt a ton in the last 4 months that I spent in Dallas – not just about food, cooking or baking, but about myself as well.
Anyways, so I wanted to try everything new that I tried there for the first time, in my own kitchen too and some which I didn’t make there but remind me of my time there. Chunky Peanut butter being one of them – Nouka and Sanchi (my nieces), you both know what I mean!!
Coming back to these cookies: the ingredients I used are all what I can find easily in my house too – All natural peanut butter made from high oleic peanuts (and nothing else) as Parth loved it with almost anything and sometimes without anything too 🙂 and rolled oats as I have been eating oats in milk with nuts, dates and seeds since over half a decade now for my breakfast. I have been using olive oil instead of butter since some time now and this being peanut butter cookies worked absolutely well with olive oil too.

You might be wondering what is this doing on a travel blog – well this is a travel blog of a mom for starters, Food and travel go beautifully together and in these times of COVID when traveling is a challenge, I’m writing about other things we do as a family – Baking (that too healthy baking) being one of them.

This recipe makes 16 scrumptious cookies (each cookie is the size of a Good Day biscuit or basically about 3 inches in diameter)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Peanut butter
(I used Mother Earth natural smooth peanut butter you can use both a chunky and a smooth version. You can also opt for the chia or hemp seed version and the proportions and recipe will remain the same)
2/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon Olive oil
1 Egg
2/3 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup + 1 tablespoon of oat flour
(Just grind the quick rolled oats in a mixer to make them into powder and use this oatmeal in the recipe. If you prefer the whole rolled oats in your cookies, you can substitute 1:1 with the whole rolled oats)

Method:
Mix peanut butter, sugar and olive oil first till they are evenly and completely incorporated
Add egg and baking soda and mix with a spoon or whisk
Add the oats (rolled or flour as you prefer), and combine everything either by hand or a stand mixer. I just do it by hand.
Once you see the whole mixture is fully combined, cover it with a cling film and put it in the refrigerator for about 3hrs. This part is essential as a well cooled cookie dough is important to help the cookies from keeping their structure and form and bake evenly.
After 3 hrs, take out the dough, divide it into 16 balls and place these balls at a distance of about 1.5 inch from eachother on the baking tray lined with a baking sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes
Cool them on a rack after taking out of the oven. When you touch fresh cookies out of the oven they may seem extremely soft and crumbly but let them cool down for 10-15minutes and they will get their cookie texture. Don’t overbake them. Best test is when the underside of the cookie is lightly golden, you know that your cookies are done.

Enjoy with a cup of hot milk, hot cocoa, coffee or just on its own 🙂